Something's Brewing

edit - some parts of this post have been somewhat superseded by subsequent events, which account for the delays in posting.
19th March 2018
Something's Brewing
My new hobby is to be making country wines. I have bought all the gear, which is surprisingly inexpensive as far as hobbies go.

Sitting in  a cupboard for about 6 years has been a beer-making kit so I decided to start with this. The kit was well out of date, as was the yeast, but I thought I might as well give it a go. If it fails to ferment I have purchased a new sachet of brewers ale which I'll throw in to save the day.



The can of malt surprised me. It was just like the malt extract I used to take as a youngster. I don't know what I was expecting really.
So with a bit of luck I'll have 40 pints of tasty beer quite soon. If it works, it could become a regular feature. As for the wine, I am going to start off with mangel wurzel wine. It should be ready in about two years.

20th March 2018
Tending to the sick
Sick animals take up an awful lot of time. I spent much of the morning tending to Ewe 004 and Wonky the Wry-necked Silkie hen. To be fair, I was actually tending to all the sheep and chickens. On the whole the animals don't take up too much of my time, but when things go wrong then I need to be able to give them all the time they need.

It's a bit tricky to see in amongst the mass of black feathers, but Wonky

is the one on the left. 

Things are hopefully looking up for Ewe 0004

The Ewe is, I think getting better, though we are still not out of the woods. We continue to hand feed the hen with a mixture of scrambled egg, sunflower seeds and cider vinegar. Every day we pierce a vitamin E tablet and tip the contents into her beak. As yet we are seeing no change in her condition.

It was almost gardening weather today, so I spent most of the afternoon doing general trimming and tidying, cutting back perennials and taking out dead growth. The dogs came out with me too and Arthur in particular busied himself trying to flush a rabbit out of one of the compost heaps.
In the end he was actually successful and Boris got lucky being in the right place as the rabbit ran into the wire fence.
I know rabbits are quite cute, but not when they constantly destroy your work in the garden. Besides, they are a good free food source for Gerry our cat and for the dogs. They usually steal Gerry's catches rather than hunting their own.
Boris didn't quite know what to do with the rabbit once he had played with it like a toy. All he knew was that Arthur wasn't allowed to take it. Once he got bored I threw it to Arthur who did what Arthur does with rabbits.

21st March 2018
Lamb Surprise
I got home to find the young brown ewe lamb nose to nose with the two rams. It had made its way up towards the stables!
I decided to put it in the stable with Ewe 004, who is looking much better now. It will give her some company. I will move them both back outside at the weekend, when I can keep an eye on them.
Hopefully a bit of company will help Ewe 0004 to make a full recovery.

22nd March 2018

The beer yeast, despite its age, has finally started working. It just shows there's life in the old dog yet!

The Silkie hen seems to be on the mend too. She is still holding her head to one side and occasionally goes into spasms, but she is now able to feed unaided. Fingers crossed.

Sue is camping with school children tonight. Only on the school field, but I am sure she will be shattered come the morning. Meanwhile I am looking after everything on the farm.

Apologies for the radio silence blog-wise, but things have been rather complicated with Ewe 0004. It has been a very worrying time and it is not over, but I just thought I would check in and let you know what's been going on.

By the end of last week Ewe 0004 seemed to be on the mend. We still had her in the stables but I was considering letting her back out into the paddock at the weekend when we could keep an eye on her.
There were no signs of impending labour.

But at about 8pm on Friday Sue checked over the stable door and there was a new-born lamb, already cleaned! It had only been a couple of hours since I had last checked on the sheep. Moreover there were two hooves just poking out of Ewe 0004's rear end.
We left her in peace for about 20 minutes, by which time there were two lambs. I was amazed that they were both alive after the previous week's dramas and I was just praying there was not another inside.

Lambs need to take on colostrum, the mother's first milk, soon after birth as it contains the antibodies they need to survive in life. Thereafter they need to continue to feed successfully. It can be hard to see if they are doing this, even if they are performing the right actions.

After the birth the ewe needs to pass the placenta, but again this is not always seen as they usually consume it soon after it passes (a wild instinct to deter predators and not to waste precious nutrients, disgusting as it sounds).
Shetland sheep are pretty good at doing everything themselves but obviously this ewe had been extremely ill so the likelihood of complications was higher than usual.
We went to bed hoping that everything would be ok. And in the morning all did indeed seem to be going to plan, except for the minor complication of hanging membrane from the ewe's rear end, but this happened last year too and sorted itself out in the end.

By the evening both lambs were looking ok, though we still hadn't positively seen them take milk. We felt confident enough though to keep a prior evening appointment.

So it was a complete shock when we got home to find one of the lambs on the brink of death. We tried to warm it but sadly we were too late. Mum was not looking wonderful either.
We dashed back to the friends we had been visiting to pick up an emergency supply of goat milk, which is just about the best substitute for a range of animals, and fed the remaining lamb.
Saturday night was a long night. I did till 3.30am and Sue did from 4.30.

Today has been unpleasant. We have been bottle feeding the lamb to make sure it gets enough milk and to take the pressure off mum who is very weak and showing no inclination to feed. I am syringing energy boosters onto her mouth and she picks up for a while, but that can't go on forever.
Losing lambs is something you have to get used to. It is very sad but it is inevitable. At least they go quickly and probably just effectively fall to sleep.
But watching a ewe struggle so is heart-breaking. I just have my fingers crossed that she will ride it out and gradually improve.

We won't make any decisions right now, but this whole event is seriously making Sue and I rethink our flock plans. It might be easier just to buy in lambs each year for fattening up and to keep some of the Shetlands for grass cutting and for their wool.
We don't need to make a decision yet, though I fear a difficult decision over Ewe 0004 will become necessary in the next few days.

Felt Flowers

17th March 2018
Cooking and Crafts for a Cold Day
More snow and biting cold easterlies again. It wasn't the best day to choose to move a new house into the turkey enclosure, but they have started laying now and need somewhere to sit.
That was it for outdoor jobs. This was a perfect day for cooking and crafts.

First up was a parsnip cake - a bit like carrot cake but, you've guessed it, with parsnips instead. Easy apart from the grated parsnips!
I had dug up too many parsnips so made parsnip and potato hash browns for the freezer too. It's astonishing how much mess grating a kg of root veg can make!
The parsnips are lovely and sweet now - reputedly they sweeten up if left to stand a few frosts.

Next up was my first ever felting. Sue purchased a box full of different coloured merino wool for her birthday. One day we hope to be able to prepare our own wool from the Shetland sheep and dye them with natural dyes from the farm.
The actual process of felting is somewhat magical. You simply arrange tufts of wool as you want them, which is hard to judge when you've no idea what's going to happen, then agitate them with increasing vigour sandwiched between layers of bubblewrap. The fibres of the wool intermingle inextricably until felt is formed. And that's it.

Mine is the best one. 

18th March 2018
Things are Looking Up
A busy day ahead. It started well with Ewe 0004 finally standing up and looking a little stronger. I am still feeding her the bright pink glucose liquid. I think she actually quite likes it, but I can tell she is getting stronger by her initial resistance. Up till now she has been too weak to protest.

Today was the Grow Your Own group, hosted by some members down in Ramsey. I had arranged to visit a smallholding on the way with a view to it opening up for a summer smallholders meeting. I had also arranged to pick up a meat slicer which I had jumped on when it came up on Facebook. Three birds with one stone.

The smallholding I visited was delightful, even in the harsh weather. I was greeted by four very large, barking dogs. A few years ago I would have buckled and turned away, but I am now a dog lover (once I know they are definitely friendly). They no longer smell the fear in me.
Then it was time to meet the goats. I have not yet kept goats (note the 'yet') but I am always surprised by how friendly they are and how soft their coat is. I am co-ordinating a Goaty Day (nothing to do with funny little beards) for the Smallholders Club late in the year. Hopefully I will be able to resist their temptations. Seriously though, they are one of the trickier species of livestock to keep so I don't think we'll be getting one any time soon.
This is a shame, for I do fancy the idea of our own dairy products. A cow is out of the question and I am pretty sure the Shetland sheep would strongly object to being milked.

I stayed longer than I should have on the smallholding so was late leaving for the Grow Your Own group get together his wasn't helped by the total absence of mobile internet signal in Ramsey. Maybe I am too reliant on my smartphone.
Anyway, the meeting was most enjoyable as usual. We discussed perennial vegetables - ones that you just plant one year and reap the harvest for many more years. Asparagus, rhubarb, globe artichoke, Jerusalem artichoke to name a few. Oh that all vegetables were like this.
Everybody brings food along to these get-togethers. There is always way too much to eat and plenty of cake!

It was late afternoon when I returned to the farm. Time to give Ewe 0004 her last dose of glucose and to hand feed the wonky-necked Silkie hen. She is not yet showing any signs of improvement but we will persist for a while yet.
Her twisted neck causes her occasionally to completely lose her sense of orientation. It shouldn't be funny, but after feeding her, if you put her outside her little house facing away from it, as soon as you let go she quickly retracts backwards into the house. It is hilarious to watch. You have to have a sense of humour when things go wrong (paired with a strong sense of compassion).

Time To Call The Vet

15th March 2018
Happy Birthday Sue!
Unfortunately Sue's birthday was somewhat overtaken by events. With Ewe 0004's health seemingly deteriorating, I took the expensive but necessary step of calling out the vet. I asked them to bring some vitamin E for the wonky-headed chicken too.
Early afternoon they rang to say the vet was 45 minutes away. I had to hang by the phone, for the road was completely closed today as the electricity went off and the wires were fitted up to the new posts.



I made the most of being incarcerated by sowing seeds most of the day. But when two hours had passed I rang the vet again to be told they had been diverted to an emergency.

Eventually two vets arrived at about half past 4. By then I had sown a lot of seeds! They got straight onto the job and quickly diagnosed that the ewe had serious metabolic problems. The prognosis was not good. If she did not respond quickly to injections of calcium and oral drenches of glucose then she would likely die. The only other way to try to save her would be to induce her to give birth or abort. 
There are three types of metabolic problem in sheep. The first is known as twin lamb disease, pregnancy toxaemia or hypoglycaemia where the demands of the rapidly growing lambs outstrip the ewe's ability to take on energy through feed. 
The second is hypocalcaemia, also known as milk fever, a calcium crisis which can be brought on by stress as a result of poor nutrition, severe weather or dog worrying.
The third is a shortage of magnesium and is known as Grass Staggers.
Without blood tests it can be tricky to determine which is at play, but it is serious whichever is the case.

As for the chicken, neither vet had ever seen a case of wry neck before, so we were all playing GoogleVet! Most importantly, they brought me three syringes of vitamins which include the all important vitamin E, since it is probable this is the cause. Under all the furry feathers, Silkie hens are the scrawniest of creatures, so finding a breast or thigh muscle to inject into was not straightforward. Long term, the Silkies need sunflower seeds in their diet to avoid this happening again. If only I had known this before.

16th March 2018
The blood test results are back
The ewe is still alive and is standing up occasionally but extremely wobbly. I don't know if this is a sign of recovery or a last ditch effort by her. The situation really is very worrying. As a smallholder I feel an overwhelming responsibility for the welfare of my animals.

Down in the turkey pen, the first turkey egg of the year was sitting on the ground. I scrambled it and fed it to the Silkie mixed in with chopped sunflower seeds and cider vinegar. As yet she shows no signs of recovery.
I did today meet somebody who actually knew of wry neck. An old fenland type who keeps chickens for show. He reckoned the bird would be in a black bin bag by the end of the week! But that won't stop us trying as long as we don't judge the bird to be suffering too much.

News from the vet. Ewe 0004 was a bit low on Calcium and Magnesium but nowhere near as low as the vet suspected. So no need to inject the magnesium which I had been left or to continue with the calcium injections. We just needed to hope now that continued oral drenches of ketol (a form of glucose) would bring her blood sugars back up to speed and that she would soon start to show a positive response.

I still strongly suspect that the whole worrying incident has most likely been triggered by some sort of trauma. Given the way I found the electric fence, I'm pretty sure something had been through it and chased her. It would not be a fox, for that would not make the sheep bolt and besides, they just go under the electric fence, not through it.
If this were the case, it is utterly infuriating for it has seriously jeopardised the life of the ewe and her unborn lambs. It has been expensive and worrying for me too. Even if she recovers, I am dreading what will happen when lambing occurs.

I would like to think that Ewe 0004 is looking a little more lively this evening. She was flicking her ears for the first time, raising her head up and looking at me and she seemed to blink in response to me waving my hand in front of her eye. She does seem to know that I am trying to help her and seems to have learned to trust me.

With nothing more that Sue or I could do, we headed off to the Thai restaurant in Holbeach to forget the smallholding for a while and celebrate her birthday.

A bad day on the smallholding

Tuesday 13th March 2018

Peace and Quiet

What a lovely, quiet, peaceful day. They can shut the road more often if they like!

I cut the dogwoods back today. It's always hard to know how much brightly coloured growth to keep and how much to chop away, for it is the new growth that will look good next year.

I went pretty drastic this year, so we'll see how they are looking come next winter.

The fresh new growth offers a lot better material for taking cuttings too. Again this year I took about 30 cuttings and would expect to end up with at least twenty healthy little shrubs from this.

I took this lovely photo of the river on the evening walk with the dogs. 

On a more worrying note, one of the pregnant ewes is limping really badly. Oddly one of the electric fence posts was lying on the floor and another was way out of place. I do hope she has not been the victim of dog harassment.

To be on the safe side, I moved all the sheep a couple of strips down toward the house. I had to lead the ewe very gently indeed, letting her take a few steps at a time. 99% of the time a lame sheep will be completely better within a couple of days, but this looked different. She was only just able to walk and was clearly in difficulty. The thought of those electric fence posts worried me too. Occasionally they lean over or the wires come unfixed, but never before have I found one just lying on the floor unattached to the fence. 

Wednesday 14th March 2018
Bad News Comes In Threes
Smallholding can occasionally kick you in the teeth, usually just when you are starting to think that everything is going smoothly.
I came home from work to a triple hit. One of the dogs had left a mess in the kitchen which was not much fun to clear up.
But things were to get much worse. The lame pregnant ewe from yesterday was sat on her own in the field in exactly the same place as this morning. She had not moved all day, meaning that she had not eaten beyond where she could reach. I took the decision to move her up to a stable - not a decision taken lightly for it is not good to move a heavily pregnant ewe. But with further cold weather in the forecast I felt she would be in real trouble if I left her outside. I was on my own and all I could think of was to lift her as carefully as possible into a wheelbarrow. Fortunately I did not have to tip her upside down and she did not put up a fight - a sign of just how poorly she was.

A sad sight - I've never had a sheep so ill that she couldn't walk herself to the stables.

I set her as comfortable as I could in the hastily prepared stable and surrounded her with food and drink. For the moment there was not much else I could do than to leave her in peace for the night.

I still hadn't given the chickens their late afternoon feed. But as I entered the chicken pen I noticed one of the black Silkie hens flopping around on the floor near the food tray. She appeared to have a broken neck, but I couldn't feel a break. Her neck was writhing around and I can only describe it as her head being upside down! My best guess was that Cocky had been too rough with her and I would surely have to put her out of her misery.
By this time I was beginning to wish I had not come home from work today!

I checked back on the ewe. She was still in the same place but was breathing very heavily. Sue and I decided we would keep an eye on her and make a decision in the morning about whether to call out the vet.

An internet search for Stargazing Chicken revealed exactly what was wrong with the Silkie hen. Wry neck. What an appropriate name. There is actually a bird called a wryneck which does something similarly weird with its neck as a display.
This condition is peculiar to Silkie and Polish chickens. It may be genetic, but probably comes down to lack of Vitamin E. So if there is a solution, it is to somehow administer Vitamin E and Selenium which aids absorption of the vitamin.
Fortunately sunflower seeds are a good source of both. If only we had known, we could have been feeding sunflower seeds to the Silkies since I buy big bags of them for the wild birds. It seems far-fetched that such an acute condition could be caused by  vitamin deficiency, but we'll give it a try. 
For now, the two black Silkies have moved down to the stables too, for this girl will need hand-feeding until and she recovers (if).

One thing that smallholding teaches is resilience. You wouldn't get past the first year without plenty of that particular quality.
Endless optimism comes in handy too!

And just so that the day didn't go completely badly, quite by chance somebody I was messaging on Facebook just happened to put up an advert for a second hand meat slicer, a proper butcher's one. I responded immediately for I have been waiting a long time for an affordable one of these to come up somewhere.
I am picking it up on Sunday.

The Beast From The East Approaches

By the time I get round to publishing this post, The Beast from the East may well be the Blast from the Past, but here goes anyway.

Monday 26th February 2018

A terrible practical joke

The beast from the east is looming. We had a light dusting of snow and the cold air outside is starting to feel more uncomfortable than invigorating.

Worst of all, somebody had decided to play a practical joke on me and fill the pond up with tiny polystyrene balls.

I decided to light the fire and stay inside sowing seeds.

Arthur was not well today, which is always worrying. He was sick several times and was feeling very sorry for himself.

Tuesday 27th February 2018

Snow surprise

A fairly restless night as Arthur was sick twice more... on the bed!

I eventually woke up just short of 9 o'clock to see snow falling thick and fast outside.

Gerry was in two minds whether to go out or not.

I let the poultry out. Some of them were pretty bemused. Only Elvis, the guinea fowl and some of the geese have ever seen this much snow before.

Considering their tropical origins, guinea fowl are incredibly hardy.

They spent the night outside on the fence as usual.

Elvis is a veteran of the snow

The most snow the Muscovies have ever seen. They seemed unperturbed.

I checked that the turkey netting was not accumulating snow and let down the brassica netting before it weighed down too much. Then I wheeled a fresh load of hay down to the sheep. They are incredibly hardy and look in their element in this weather. I doubt the cold and wet penetrate very far at all into their thick, lanolin filled fleece.

The Shetland sheep don't even bat an eyelid.

They make Northerners look like soft Southerners!

For today that was it for snow. In fact it turned into a sunny day, with just the occasional flurry, and by late afternoon most of the snow was gone again. But we are in for colder days and may be lucky to see the thermometer top zero before the weekend.

News on Arthur. He is gradually looking better, although still feeling more than a little sorry for himself. He did venture outside for a little bit of fresh air while Boris engaged in the fruitless task of chasing snow balls!

A Fedge Cathedral

Sunday 28th January 2018
A New Fancy Fedge
I have been trying to arrange a fedging work party for ages and today everything came together.
A fedge is a cross between a hedge and a fence, exploiting the unstoppable urge of willow to take root and grow apace.
This can not be done when the ground is hard and frosty and is no fun in the rain, which is why I changed it from yesterday. Today's weather was perfect - exceptionally mild, dry and not too breezy. The only unforeseen problem was that the bees were out in force while we were trying to harvest the willows right next to the hives.
I had to tell one of the participants quite forcefully that it really wasn't a good idea to stand in front of the hives watching them. Meanwhile, I lopped the new growth off as quickly as I could.
Each willow yielded about 50 whips up to 12 foot or more in length - amazing.

The team was a good one and the students listened well. I was happy to let them make decisions and get on with things on their own. By lunch we had the willow harvested and sorted, the ground fabric in place and all 22 uprights in place.

After lunch I showed Dans and Tom how to weave in the binders which stabilise the uprights, then in went the weavers. This is the most satisfying part where everything suddenly comes together. Final job was to tie everything in, trim off the loose ends and decide the final design for the top.

This was my most ambitious fedge to date, with two straight lengths linking in to a central archway.
It will provide a fitting entrance to my new butterfly and bee meadow area which is being sown later this year.

All finished. One wonky upright which I will replace.

Dr Dolittle relaxes in the evening

In the evening I prepared a Jerusalem Artichoke and Orange Salad, another meal which Sue awarded more than ten out of ten!

Monday 29th January 2018

A New Wether Map

First job of the day was to move one of the young male sheep down to the main paddocks. There is no grass left in the top paddock so the sheep are reliant on hay and sugar beet nuts. I would move them all, but the brown wether needs a proper fence and Rambo needs to be kept away from his daughters.

Rambo with  the brown wether - no name as he will be dinner later in the year.

He can't be down in the paddocks as he ducks under the electric fence with impunity.

This young wether (castrated male) has been moved down with the ewes.

He is small so I am keen to get him onto longer grass. 

He spent his first day being very rammy.

I put some finishing touches to the archway in the fedge, mindful of a forecast of rain later in the morning.

It didn't let down and came suddenly enough to drench me. 

Wandering Geese
The geese have been wandering further and further in search of grass and managed to find where the fence ends. They wandered into next door's paddocks. This was never a problem when Don lived next door, but the geese need to learn that this is now out of bounds.

I herded them back, but was not about to start working on the fence in the rain.

Half an hour later they were back next door!

The geese can get around remarkably quickly when they want and can be both stubborn and stupid in equal measure.

Tomorrow I will attend to the fence.

A Sheep on the Loose (or The Boar who Sat Down)

Friday 19th January 2018
Sheep On The Loose
"JOHN! JOHN!"
Sue's voice woke me up sharply. It had a sense of urgency. Thoughts started to go through my mind of what might be wrong. "One of the sheep is on the drive".

I threw on some clothes and rushed downstairs, still bleary-eyed and trying to get my bearings. Sure enough there was the brown wether lamb confusedly wandering around on the gravel. Panic over. It wouldn't be difficult to drive it round to the other gate where we could let it back in with the others.
With this done I investigated how it had gotten out. The three strands of electric fence were pulled and snapped and the rickety stock fence was pushed aside. The lamb had obviously been trying to reach some out of bounds willow and I guess had got its horns caught in the electric fence. This would have given the poor thing quite a shock and it had obviously blundered its way through the fence and onto the drive. Fortunately the others had not followed.

I had to go to work, but the fence needed mending first. It was just a question of fixing the wire using small metal connectors, but the icy air made this job considerably more tricky than it could have been.

Saturday 20th January 2018
PE One Two Zero launched
Lots of preparation to do to be ready for tonight's meeting, but before all that I had a couple of pigs to pick up. Unfortunately they won't be ending up in my freezer, for they belong to friends of mine. I just pick them up in the trailer and drop them off at the abattoir early in the morning. Although Steve hadn't fed the pigs all day (the standard way to get them to do what you want), they refused to follow a bucket of food up the ramp of the trailer. They got to the bottom of it and then stopped. The boar sat down! After a couple of minutes the young sow decided to take advantage of the food up in the trailer but the boar resisted all efforts to coax him forwards so we decided to gently nudge him in the right direction. But you cannot hurry pigs. They have a sixth sense and their stubbornness automatically kicks in.
In truth, it didn't take too long and experience had taught us to channel the pigs and not give them the option of backtracking, so there was no chasing around in the mud.
I tried the tickling technique but the boar stayed firmly plonked on his bum.
So I informed Steve of the wheelbarrow technique (use your imagination, it speaks for itself). He was dubious that this could work but I assured him I had done it before.
We gave it a few more minutes but there was no change in the situation, so Steve lifted the boar up by the back legs and we both bundled it forwards. Basically the pig goes into forward freefall, a little like the principle of a spacecraft staying in orbit.
Success. We quickly closed the back gate of the trailer just in case the boar decided to reverse and that was it. Job done.

We threw in plenty of straw, for tonight was going to be icy.
When I got home the pigs buried themselves under the straw and went to sleep. Little did they suspect what was in store for them.

PE One Two Zero
At 7pm we were expecting up to 20 people to arrive. I have started a new local group of smallholders and this was to be our first get together. There was no agenda, just to get to know each other, share some good homemade food and good company.

In the end we had sixteen people which was a great turnout. We are all in the Fenland Smallholders Club, but most never go along to the monthly meetings down in Upwell. I figured that if we kept it local people might be more likely to take the time out. More importantly, we could hold the get together in the evening, outside those precious daylight hours when we need to be outside working on our smallholdings. With no-one travelling more than 5 miles on familiar country lanes, there would be no worries about driving in the dark or arriving home too late.

Some of the people I already knew quite well but some I had never even met. It was great to be able to find out more about each other in a relaxed atmosphere. I hope that a good time was had by everybody and that they all come back next time, which will be in about three months.

Sunday 21st January 2018
Snow!
An early start to take the pigs to the abattoir. The drop off went quite smoothly, although the boar sat down again. In the end we had one pulling him from the front and me lifting him from the back - this is easier said than done when you are jammed inside a 4 foot high trailer with two pigs which could quite well squash you!
I had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, for there was a possibility of snow arriving about 8 in the morning. For the second time in a week the BBC got it disastrously wrong. After failing to mention the mini hurricane that swept through midweek, they now had no mention of snow for this area on their website. Shortly after 8.30 we had a couple of very light flurries, but about an hour later it started coming down with more determination. An icy surface meant that the snow settled quickly.

I spent an hour or so wheel barrowing the straw from the trailer down to the turkey pen to keep the ground from getting too muddy. I resembled a snowman by the end. I retreated into the warm farmhouse, only to discover that the rest of the family had gone back to bed!!!

The snow continued into the early afternoon, leaving us with a covering of about an inch of the white stuff. Nothing compared to further north, but snow is pretty rare here.
I no longer feel the urge to run outside and play in it. In fact I didn't even venture out to take a photo for you. Instead I decided to start my seed audit for the year, digging out my trays of seeds from last year to see what I can get away with not buying this year.

I sat in the conservatory so I could watch the snow falling from a  position of comfort, sipping a nice hot cup of coffee and occasionally glancing up at the garden birds flocking to the feeders. There is still something quite magical about snow. I could just watch it falling for hours.